It's election day here in South Korea and everybody gets the day off. Can't complain about that. I think America should adopt this practice. Seems like a perfectly valid excuse for a day off work and a good reason to celebrate our right to choose what we want in our government. Makes more sense than getting a day off for an Italian explorer who sailed across the Atlantic from Spain and thought he landed in India (and, I might add, never set foot in what is now the United States). What a strange reason for a day off that is.
Anyway, the South Koreans today are voting for 300 seats in the parliament. I can't claim to know much about the way the South Korean government works as I haven't read much about it, but two of my older students explained to me that today they would be voting for members of parliament and that this would decide which of the two major parties would get control of the house (if I understood them correctly). Later this year, in December I believe, South Koreans will go to the polls again to choose a new president.
Amidst all the voting that is going on today, North Korea is making final preparations with the rocket. It's supposed to take flight sometime in the next few days. As much as I'd like to see the thing fail, I hope it doesn't veer off course and land here in Seoul. That wouldn't be so good. But of course, if it did land here in Seoul, I don't think it would be by accident.
North Korea has been strangely "open" with this launch, allowing the media to go up there to report what's going on. They've even allowed journalists to film the thing. Of course, none of this has convinced anyone that they are being completely on the up and up about this whole thing. Just this morning I read an article that said the flight path of the rocket and the purported purpose of the satellite don't match up leading the experts to believe that NK is lying about either the direction this thing is headed or the satellite's intended function. Or both, I guess. We'll see.
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